Dénouement
Mark Steyn thinks the Hillary Clinton campaign is just about over - and he writes on the reasons why it is.
Bill Clinton understood a crude rule of show business – that, if you behave like a star, there are plenty of people who'll treat you like one. The apotheosis of this theory was his interminable ambulatory entrance down mile after mile of corridor at the 2000 Democratic convention in Los Angeles, when Slick Willie finally out-Elvised Elvis – or, more accurately, out-Smarted the opening sequence of "Get Smart."
Apparently, no one had thought to tell him to try to get within four miles of the stage before the introductory video ended. He was, by my calculations, outside the men's room on Corridor G27, Sub-Basement Level 6 of the Staples Center. As he began the long, long, lo-oo-oo-oong televised walk to the podium the crowd watching the monitors cheered – and, 20 minutes later, after he'd strolled down the first three or four windowless tunnels of attractive luminous drywall, hung a left by the water cooler, taken the emergency stairs, cut across the stationery closet, moved smoothly through the boiler room and had still only reached the Coke machine on Sous-Mezzanine Level 4, and there was at least a mile and a half between him and the stage, and the Democratic activists out in the hall were beginning to figure they could get dinner and a movie and still be back in time for the last third of his walk-on, they were nevertheless still cheering.
In effect, President Clinton dared them not to cheer. Tom Jones wouldn't have risked it. Engelbert Humperdinck would have balked. But, after eight years of talking the talk, Bill walked the walk. In the hall, the delegates' hands were raw, bleeding stumps, but the Slickster knew that, even if he started his entrance in Idaho, those Dems would cheer him every step of the way.
The Clintons turned the Democratic Party into a star vehicle and designated everyone else as extras. But their star quality was strictly comparative. They had industrial-strength audacity and a lot of luck: Bill jumped into the 1992 race when A-listers like Mario Cuomo were too cowed by expert advice that Bush the Elder was unbeatable. Clinton gambled, won the nomination and beat a weak opponent in a three-way race, with Ross Perot siphoning votes from the right. He got even luckier four years later. So did Hillary when she embarked on something patently absurd – a first lady running for a Senate seat in a state she's never lived in – only to find Rudy Giuliani going into instant public meltdown.
The SAS, Britain's special forces, have a motto: Who dares wins. The Clintons dared, and they won – even as almost everyone else in their party lost: senators, congressmen, governors, state legislators. Even when they ran into a spot of intern trouble, sheer nerve saw them through. Almost anyone else would have slunk off in shame, but the Clintons understood that the checks and balances don't add up to much if you're determined not to go: As at that 2000 convention speech, they dared the Democrats not to cheer.
Now, however, the Clintons find their old niche filled by a usurper. There's a new messiah on the block, so to speak. And so the long, twisted narrative of the Clintons is drawing to a close. Oh, personally I don't think Hillary is quite finished yet. She'll be back at some point. The Clintons have been declared politically dead many times in the past and have always come back - it's sort of like a B-grade zombie flick. At some point, they'll reanimate.
By Mwalimu Daudi, Saturday, 23 February , 2008 @ 8:13 pm
Gaius, I will give up my prediction that Hilly the Hun wins the nomination when it is pried from my cold, dead fingers….
By Gaius, Saturday, 23 February , 2008 @ 8:16 pm
Heh
By NortonPete, Saturday, 23 February , 2008 @ 8:40 pm
Mwalimu,
You need to know your opponent.
They are whimsical and capricious.
This is something most of us do not understand and can not fathom.
Know your opponent. They are not like you.